


here and alive

by Wildehack (tyleet)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, Gen, M/M, Mention of Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 02:17:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19736332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyleet/pseuds/Wildehack
Summary: Jon gets some perspective.





	here and alive

**Author's Note:**

> Written for quiietest on tumblr :)

Jon is…. _fairly_ certain the trip through Helen’s corridors will take less time than the journey back by sea.

For Basira, at least.

He was more confident about himself before he rounded a corner just ahead of her, and then found himself in a….different sort of maze, this one something more like an outdoor labyrinth, the stone walls heavy with moss, the night dripping down green and heavy around him. He calls for Helen repeatedly, but she doesn’t come. _Esmentiras_ , he thinks with disgust, and then starts sullenly walking the labyrinth. For lack of anything better to do. 

It’s a poor labyrinth, really. More like a ruin of one than the actual thing, like the staging area of the Coliseum, or an abandoned trench from the first world war. Jon can see over most of the walls, because the stones have been crumbled down with age, and there is a yellow moon shedding just enough light down that he can see there are only a few miles of structure to walk trough. But the debris left in the path slows his pace. There are mossy statues crumbled into the route that Jon thinks must have stood on top of the walls at one point, tortured, irrational looking things that suit the Spiral as well as anything else.  
  
Jon is climbing over one when it gasps and grabs his ankle, fingers digging into his skin like knife-points. Jon shouts and falls over, and only when he’s scrambled up to his elbows on the damp stone floor does he recognize the thing that grabbed him.  
  
“Michael,” he says, eyes widening.   
  
“Oh,” Michael says, and the thing looks far worse than it had the last time Jon saw it. Still a very tall and impossibly thin man, but its yellow hair is caked with dirt, and its body is partially overgrown with moss, just like the other broken statues. It is still loosely clutching Jon’s ankle, which is bleeding sluggishly into the stone. “I suppose I am still Michael. In some ways.”   
  
Jon breathes out hard. “Let-–let go of my ankle,” he says, and Michael looks down at its hand in surprise, like it has forgotten it was there. It lets go, and Jon jerks away, just out of grabbing distance.   
  
Michael doesn’t try to stop him, just looks at him with lost, dizzy eyes. “And what about you, Archivist? Are you who you always were?”   
  
Jon’s ankle is sliced neatly in five places, and it’s undoubtedly going to scar, because Jon’s failures with the Powers always scar. But it’s not going to get infected, no matter how much mud Jon drags it through, and it will be fully healed up in a matter of hours. “No,” Jon says, because what’s the point in lying to a mostly-dead construct that lives somewhere in your tentative ally’s stomach? “No, I’m afraid the–the version of me that you knew died in the Unknowing.” 

Michael gives him a sad smile. “That’s two of us, then. Do you like what you are now?”   
  
“No,” Jon says immediately, although there’s an uneasy tug in his gut when he says so, like his god objects to untruths even when it’s Jon that utters them.   
  
“Liar,” Michael says, and its smile grows that much more sincere, like it can’t help but delight in Jon’s discomfort. “Are you an excellent monster, then? You were always an excellent Archivist.”   
  
Jon’s teeth grind together. “What I am,” he says bitterly, “is a necessary evil. For now. That doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten that I’m evil. I’m going to remedy the situation as soon as-–I can afford to.”   
  
Michael sighs. “Now you sound like Gertrude.”   
  
He does, Jon realizes, and scrubs at his eyes with both hands. He says the first thing that comes into his mind, trying to forget it: “Anyway, how are you alive? I thought Helen overtook you. Became the _who_ to your _what_.”   
  
“Oh, I’m not alive,” Michael assures him. “Well–-Michael Shelley is certainly dead, and the thing that I was _isn’t_ any longer. But being dead and being gone are very different things, as you should really know by now.” 

“I–-sorry,” Jon says, because it was rather a stupid question. He breathes out slowly, thinks of a better one. “Do you know the way out of here?”   
  
Its eyes glint at him in the half-light. “Yes.” 

Jon rolls his eyes. “Do you know a safe way out of the Spiral’s stomach, something that will end with me _undigested_?” 

“Do you know, Archivist,” it says, lolling its head on one sharp hand, “I think I missed you? Yes.” 

“Tell me,” Jon says, and puts some strength behind it.   
  
Michael shivers. “Oh! Oh, that’s-–you’ve gotten better at that. I’m going to tell you, but it’s-–not simple. One way to explain it would be that there’s a door in my throat. Another way would be that there’s a door in the thing that is not Helen Richardson’s throat, and for the moment she’s _nestled_ it between my vocal cords, and every time I swallow I feel the way back to the world, but of course it’s not a way out for me. _Here_ and _alive_ are just as different as _dead_ and _gone_.”   
  
Jon looks at Michael’s throat. It’s long, pale, smudged with dirt. He believes it, of course. “Will you let me out?”   
  
Michael looks at him for a long time. Hungrily, Jon thinks. “For a price, Archivist. There’s always a price.”   
  
“What do you want?”   
  
It smiles. “A kiss.” 

Jon physically recoils, and Michael makes a sound like a sighing giggle. 

“I didn’t get to kill you,” it explains softly. “A kiss is the next best thing.” When Jon still hesitates, it reaches out to him, the blades of its hand open and inviting. “Come now. Don’t you want to go back to the world?”   
  
Jon chose the world when he was lying in a hospital bed, and he chose it again when he was clutching Daisy’s hand in the forever deep, and he supposes he must have chosen it without even knowing he had when he Saw the dark sun, or else it would have swallowed him up. He knows it could have. Monster or not, necessary evil or not–-he wants to live. 

Without letting himself think about it too much, he crawls into Michael’s reach, and takes its nearly human face in his hands. “For what it's worth,” Jon says abruptly, “I think I’m sorry for what happened to you.”   
  
Michael sighs and presses its cheek into Jon’s palm. Its hands have come up to rest lightly on Jon’s back, although it hasn’t yet applied any pressure. “Which me?”   
  
Jon shrugs, and Michael gives him a breathless little laugh. While it’s still mid-laughter, Jon leans down and kisses it, a light brush of lips. Michael stops laughing and kisses him back with increasing heat, moaning a little into Jon's mouth. Jon is unsurprised to taste blood. Michael’s the one to break the kiss, although Jon’s the one who needs to breathe.  
  
“For what it's worth,” it whispers against Jon's lips, eyes half-lidded and dizzyingly close, “I think I’m sorry for what happened to you, too.”   
  
Jon can’t reply, because then a yellow door opens up in Michael’s throat, and he steps through it without hesitation.   
  
He finds himself in his office in the Archives. 

Helen is sitting on the desk, waiting for him. There’s a cup of tea in her hands, brewed in his familiar mug.   
  
“Did you have a pleasant chat?” she asks, looking at him with a distant, vertiginous gaze.   
  
Jon wipes the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. He can feel a distinct cut through his upper lip, where Michael had traced the curve with its tongue. Another scar for the collection. “I don’t think that was necessary,” he spits.   
  
She shrugs. “Just some perspective, Archivist.” She gets up from the desk, hands him the mug of tea. “Welcome back to the world.”

Jon takes the tea, and it is hot against the porcelain, a solid thing that he can hold in his hands. Helen smiles at him, obviously pleased, and disappears back through the yellow door.   
  
Jon sips the tea, and it stings the cut on his lip. It occurs to Jon that he is both here and alive.   
  
"Huh," he says aloud, and tries not to think about the rest of it. 

**Author's Note:**

> i remain wildehacked on tumblr if you wanna come witness my continued descent into TMA madness <3


End file.
